Doug Williams
| birth_place = Reading, Berkshire, England | death_date = | death_place = | resides = | billed = Manchester, England | trainer = NWA UK-Hammerlock Wrestling Academy | debut = October 1993 | retired = }} Douglas Clayton Durdle (September 1, 1972), better known by his ring name Doug Williams, is an English professional wrestler currently working for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling under the ring name Douglas Williams. In TNA Williams is a former two-time X Division Champion and a one-time World Tag Team Champion with former partner Brutus Magnus. He also works in various independent promotions in the United Kingdom and abroad, including the Frontier Wrestling Alliance (FWA), One Pro Wrestling (1PW) and Pro Wrestling Noah. Professional wrestling career During the 1990s Williams trained with (and wrestled for) NWA UK Hammerlock. While competing in FWA's King of England tournament Williams wrestled and won a match against Eddie Guerrero. Williams would also go on to become the promotion's top champion on two occasions. Williams wrestled against Martin Stone in the main event of the promotion's comeback show "New Frontiers" in August 2009, and has since become embroiled in the ongoing feud between Stone's faction "The Agenda" and the FWA Resistance. By 2004, Williams would begin touring with Pro Wrestling Noah in Japan where he would become a Global Honored Crown Tag Team Champion with Scorpio. Williams continued to win many foreign and local championships, even defeating "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson in the final of a tournament in Rethel, France on May 6, 2005 to became the first International Catch Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Champion. While World Wrestling Entertainment was touring England in November 2006, Williams made a dark match appearance in a losing effort to Carlito. Williams would also appear occasionally on television throughout 2007 and 2008 with British wrestling promotion, while with TNA due to the ruling their contracted wrestlers can appear in independent promotions that aren't televised in the USA. Ring of Honor (2002-2007) Williams went on a tour around the United States on several occasions making notable appearances in Ring of Honor over the course of several years. He debuted for the promotion on June 22, 2002, defeating American Dragon. This victory earned Doug a shot at the ROH World Championship on July 27, 2002, which was fought under ironman rules in a four way contest, which also featured Christopher Daniels, Low Ki and Spanky. His return to Ring of Honor saw Williams regain the FWA British Heavyweight Championship from Christopher Daniels, on March 22, 2003, before unsuccessfully challenging Samoa Joe for the ROH World Championship on April 26, 2003. On July 19, 2003, Reckless Youth defeated Doug Williams in a pure wrestling challenge. After another stint away, Williams returned on February 14, 2004 to defeat Chris Sabin in the pure wrestling tournament, but was later knocked out by CM Punk. On July 17, 2004, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Williams defeated Jay Lethal, Nigel McGuinness and John Walters, in order to qualify for the Pure Wrestling final. The final was contested later that evening, and saw Williams defeat Alex Shelley to capture the Pure Wrestling Championship. Doug had two successful defenses of the Pure Wrestling Championship. He defeated Shelley on July 23, 2004 and defeated Austin Aries via submission one day later. He later then lost the title to John Walters, however, on August 28, 2004. On September 11, 2004, Williams had another unsuccessful shot at the World Championship, which was also against Samoa Joe. On May 13, 2005, Williams once again wrestled in ROH when he teamed with Colt Cabana to defeat the team of Nigel McGuiness and Chad Collyer, before losing to Homicide the next day. During ROH's tour of the United Kingdom in August 2006, Williams teamed with Jody Fleisch as "Team UK", defeating "Team Noah" (SUWA and Go Shiozaki). The second show of the tour took place in Broxbourne and saw Williams defeat Jimmy Rave. Williams' last appearances in ROH were in 2007. On April 13, Williams teamed with regular partner Nigel McGuinness to face then-World Champion Takeshi Morishima and Chris Hero in a tag team match. McGuinness pinned Hero to win the match for his team. The next night at Fighting Spirit on April 14, Doug made it two for two by defeating Colt Cabana with his Chaos Theory finisher. Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2008–present) House shows (2008) Williams wrestled James Storm on March 26, 2003 during TNA Xplosion. It wasn't until Williams was confirmed to have signed a contract with TNA Wrestling from June 12, 2008 that he became part of their roster to take part in TNA Wrestling's World X Cup. Williams was part of TNA's UK tour, wrestling in all four shows. On June 12, 2008, in Liverpool, Doug teamed with Gail Kim, though they fell short in defeat to the team of Awesome Kong and "Cowboy" James Storm. On June 13, 14 and 15, TNA held a second show in Liverpool, along with others in Coventry and Brentwood. Doug also wrestled on these shows, with multiple 3 Way Dances against Jay Lethal and A.J. Styles. Styles was victorious on all three occasions. Team International (2008) Williams represented Team International during the 2008 World X Cup tournament, where he defeated Team Japan's Masato Yoshino in his Impact! debut on July 10, 2008. He then wrestled in a 12-Man World X Cup elimination contest, at Victory Road. Williams returned to TNA at Turning Point where he competed in a X Division seeding match. He eliminated Jimmy Rave from the ten man match, but in the end the eventual winner Eric Young eliminated him placing him third in the X Division rankings. Williams competed on TNA's 2009 Maximum Impact Tour in X Division matches. British Invasion / World Elite (2009–2010) Williams re-appeared on TNA television on the April 30, 2009, edition of Impact!, as a member of The British Invasion faction, along with Brutus Magnus and Rob Terry. The British Invasion got to the final of the Team 3D Invitational Tag Team Tournament but lost to Beer Money, Inc. (James Storm and Robert Roode) at Sacrifice. In the dark match of Slammiversary, the British Invasion defeated Rhino and Eric Young. Later that evening, they interfered in the TNA World Tag Title match. At Victory Road, Team 3D retained their IWGP World Tag Team Titles against the British Invasion. On the July 25th edition of Impact!, the British Invasion, Sheik Abdul Bashir and Kiyoshi defeated the TNA Originals after Eric Young turned on his team. After the match, Young, the British Invasion, Bashir and Kiyoshi formed World Elite. On the July 30 episode of Impact!, Williams and Magnus won the IWGP Tag Team Championship by defeating Team 3D in a Tables match. However, New Japan Pro Wrestling would state that they still recognize Team 3D as the official champions since TNA did not have proper sanction to make the title change. On August 10, 2009, NJPW formally recognized the title switch. At Bound for Glory the British Invasion lost the IWGP Tag Team Titles back to Team 3D, but managed to win the TNA World Tag Team Titles in a four way Full Metal Mayhem Tag Team match against Booker T and Scott Steiner, Team 3D and Beer Money. The following month at Turning Point Williams and Magnus successfully defended the titles in a three-way match against Beer Money and The Motor City Machineguns (Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin). At Final Resolution they were once again able to retain their titles in a match against Shelley and Sabin. At Genesis the British Invasion lost the TNA World Tag Team Titles to Matt Morgan and Hernandez. X Division Champion and Fourtune (2010-present) On the January 28 edition of Impact! Williams cashed in Rob Terry's "Feast or Fired" briefcase and used it to defeat Amazing Red for the TNA X Division Championship. Two days later Williams competed in his first Ultimate X match at a house show in London, successfully defending his new title against Daniels, Suicide, Amazing Red and Chris Sabin. On the February 18 edition of Impact! Rob Terry grew tired of his stable mates' abuse and attacked Magnus, thus completing his face turn. At Destination X Williams successfully defended the X Division Championship against Shannon Moore after hitting him with a brick and afterwards cut a promo, where he claimed to hate the current X Division, full of acrobats calling themselves wrestlers, before announcing that he was going to re-establish the division as a place for pure catch-as-catch-can wrestlers like himself. On the April 5 edition of Impact! Williams began using the ring name Douglas Williams. At Lockdown Williams was scheduled to defend his title in a three-way steel cage match against both Kazarian and Moore, but was forced to miss the event due to being unable to fly out of England after the country's airspace was closed following a volcano eruption in Iceland. At the event TNA announced that as a result of missing the show, Williams was stripped of the X Division Championship. After missing two more weeks of Impact!, Williams returned on the May 3 edition of Impact! and refused to hand the Championship belt over to the new champion, Kazarian, and claimed that he had to beat him for it at Sacrifice, in order to get it. Two weeks later at Sacrifice Williams defeated Kazarian to regain the X Division Championship. The following month at Slammiversary VIII Williams successfully defended his X Division Championship against Brian Kendrick, using a high flying maneuver, a tornado DDT, despite his previous anti-high flying statements. On July 3, 2010, Dixie Carter announced that Durdle had signed a new long–term contract with TNA, which also led to him relocating from the United Kingdom to the United States. On July 11 at Victory Road Williams successfully defended his X Division Championship against Brian Kendrick, this time in an Ultimate X submission match. On the August 5 edition of Impact! Williams interfered in a Street Fight between Jay Lethal and Ric Flair, helping Flair win the match. The following week Williams joined Flair's Fourtune stable, as he, A.J. Styles, Kazarian, Robert Roode, James Storm and Matt Morgan attacked EV 2.0, a stable consisting of former Extreme Championship Wrestling performers. At No Surrender Williams defeated EV 2.0 member Sabu to retain the X Division Championship. On September 6, at the tapings of the September 16 edition of Impact!, Williams lost the X Division Championship to Jay Lethal. In wrestling *'Finishing moves' **''Bombs Away'' (TNA) / Bomb Scare (Independent circuit) (Diving knee drop) **''Chaos Theory'' (Williams pushes the opponent from behind into the turnbuckles, grabs hold of their waist, rolls backwards with them and follows up with a bridging German suplex) **Guillotine choke – 2010–present **''Revolution DDT'' (Tornado DDT) *'Signature moves' **''Anarchy Knee'' (Running high knee) **''British Figure Four Leglock'' (Reverse figure four leglock) **European uppercut, sometimes from the top rope **Inverted Gory special **Bridging / Release double underhook suplex, sometimes from the top rope **Northern Lights suplex **Push up facebusters **Snap suplex transitioned into a gutwrench suplex and finished with an exploder suplex *'With Brutus Magnus' **'Finishing moves' ***Bearhug (Magnus) / Diving European uppercut (Williams) combination **'Signature moves' ***Double straight jacket neckbreaker ***Running arched big boot (Magnus) / German suplex (Williams) combination *'Managers' **Rob Terry **'Ric Flair' *'Nicknames' **'"The Anarchist"' **"The Human Torture Device" **'"The Finest Thing in Life"' *'Entrance themes' **"Song 2" by Blur **"Made in Britain" by Rusty Music **'"The British Invasion"' by Dale Oliver (TNA) Championships and accomplishments Martial arts *'Judo' **British Judo Championship (72 kg weight class; 1992) Professional wrestling *'3 Count Wrestling' **3CW Heavyweight Championship (1 time) *'All Star Wrestling' **ASW British Heavyweight Championship (1 time) **ASW Middle Heavyweight Championship (1 time) **ASW People's Championship (1 time) *'Athletik Club Wrestling' **ACW World Wrestling Championship (1 time) *'European Wrestling Associaition' **EWA Intercontinental Championship (1 time) *'European Wrestling Promotion' **EWP Intercontinental Championship (1 time) **EWP Submission Shoot Championship (1 time) *'Frontier Wrestling Alliance' **FWA British Heavyweight Championship (1 time) *'German Wrestling Promotion' **GWP WrestlingCorner Championship (1 time, current) *'International Catch Wrestling Alliance' **ICWA World Heavyweight Championship (1 time) *'NWA UK Hammerlock' **King of the Ring (1998) **Survivor Series Tournament (1996, 1997) *'Premier Wrestling Federation' **PWF Heavyweight Championship (1 time) **PWF Mid-Heavyweight Championship (1 time) **Worthing Trophy (2002–2004, 2006) **Wrestler of the Year (2002–2004, 2006, 2007) *'Pro Wrestling Illustrated' **PWI ranked him #'45' of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 2010 *'Pro Wrestling Noah' **GHC Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Scorpio *'Revolution British Wrestling' **One Night Tournament (2005) *'Ring of Honor' **FWA British Heavyweight Championship (1 time) **ROH Pure Championship (1 time) **ROH Pure Championship Tournament (2004) *'Rings of Europe' **Thermencup (2005) *'Total Nonstop Action Wrestling' **IWGP Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Brutus Magnus **TNA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Brutus Magnus **TNA X Division Championship (2 times) *'The Wrestling Alliance' **Universal British Heavyweight Championship (1 time) **TWA British Heavyweight Championship (2 times) **TWA European Heavyweight Championship (1 time) **TWA British Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Robbie Brooksidec *'Triple X Wrestling' **TXW Crush Championship (1 time) *'Ultimate Wrestling Alliance' **UWA Championship (1 time) *'westside Xtreme wrestling' **wXw Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Martin Stone **Trios Tournament (2006) – with Takashi Sugiura and Yoshinobu Kanemaru References External links *TNA profile *Online World of Wrestling profile Category:1972 births Category:English wrestlers Category:1 Pro Wrestling current roster Category:3 Count Wrestling alumni Category:All Star Wrestling alumni Category:Athletik Club Wrestling alumni Category:Catch Wrestling Association alumni Category:European Wrestling Association alumni Category:European Wrestling Promotion alumni Category:Frontier Wrestling Alliance current roster Category:Future Championship Wrestling alumni Category:German Wrestling Promotion current roster Category:International Catch Wrestling Alliance alumni Category:Irish Whip Wrestling alumni Category:NWA UK Hammerlock alumni Category:Premier Wrestling Federation current roster Category:Pro Wrestling Guerrilla alumni Category:Pro Wrestling NOAH current roster Category:Ring of Honor alumni Category:Rings of Europe alumni Category:Total Nonstop Action Wrestling current roster Category:Varsity Pro Wrestling current roster Category:Westside Xtreme Wrestling alumni Category:World Wrestling Entertainment alumni Category:TNA X-Division Champions